The knitting tools of the type under discussion are latch needles, compound needles and bearded needles, as well as plush hooks such as are used for producing plush goods, and the like.
In knitting tools of this kind, the hook in the great majority of tools has a circular cross-sectional form. The growing increase in the operating speed of knitting machines equipped with knitting tools of this kind results in ever-increasing stresses on the knitting tools in the vicinity of the hook. In order to increase the strength of the hook, the attempt has already been made to form it with a rectangular, triangular or other cross-sectional shape, such as is known for example from U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,854,836, 4,178,781 and 4,210,003. Although the section modulus of the highly stressed hook could be increased by these changes in cross section, such hooks have not become established in practice because as a consequence of the large cross section, which remains uniform over the entire hook, undesirably large dimensions on the part of the entire hook necessarily resulted. Needles with such relatively large hooks cannot be used in producing very fine grades of knitted goods, for instance, because the size of the loop or stitch, is also determined by the size of the hook, and because during loop formation a maximum amount of free space should be available for the thread at the side of the hook.